Action Alert - Improve the Freedom of Information Act!

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) helps protect the public's right to know, and new legislation would provide some much-needed updates to this crucial law. One open government bill has already passed the House -- make sure a similar one passes in the Senate.

H.R. 1309 and S. 849 [PDF] give federal agencies, like the FBI and the FCC, greater incentive to follow the law and make it easier for all FOIA requesters to access government documents. Among other reforms, the bills will help government watchdogs keep track of FOIA requests they've sent and ensure that more journalist requesters get preferred treatment under the law. The bills will also penalize agencies that don't respond to requests within the time limits set by the FOIA.

Related Updates

EFF sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI and other Department of Justice agencies to get some straight answers about approximately 7,800 supposedly un-hackable cellphones. Law enforcement agencies say they have a problem–criminals all use encrypted devices, making those devices inaccessible to law enforcement. They call...

If we as citizens are more informed of police policies and procedures, and we can easily access those materials online and study them, it’ll lead to greater accountability and better relations between our communities and the police departments that serve us. EFF supports a bill in the California legislature which...

A decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday will help the public learn more about how law enforcement use of privacy invasive biometric technology. The decision in Webster v. Hennepin County is mostly good news for the requester in the case, who sought the public records as part...

Update: Canadian authorities announced on May 7 that they dropped all charges against the teen they had previously accused of unauthorized use of a computer service for downloading public records from a government website. Canadian authorities should drop charges against a 19-year-old Canadian accused of “unauthorized use of...

A New York judge has ruled that the public and the judiciary shouldn’t second-guess the police when it comes to secret snooping on the public with intrusive surveillance technologies. He couldn’t be more wrong. A core part of EFF’s mission is questioning the decisions of our law enforcement and...

InternetLab, the Brazilian independent research center, has published their third edition of “Quem Defende Seus Dados?" (Who defends your data?"), an annual report which evaluates the practices of their local Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and how they treat their customers’ personal data when the government demands it...

Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency Government transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. But when a public agency...

After the prosecution of a California doctor revealed the FBI’s ties to a Best Buy Geek Squad computer repair facility in Kentucky, new documents released to EFF show that the relationship goes back years. The records also confirm that the FBI has paid Geek Squad employees as informants.

We need to talk about national security secrecy. Right now, there are two memos on everyone’s mind, each with its own version of reality. But the memos are just one piece. How the memos came to be—and why they continue to roil the waters in Congress—is more important. On January...